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sheffield trams
Sheffield can be a bad place to arrive by train. You leave the station onto a busy road and have a longish climb to the centre with rather grey views of the Park Hill Flats, the Odeon and Roxy and other 60s and 70s buildings. The hilly terrain can look a bit bleak, but it also favours the tram, which is able to pull up at the station "back-door" at platform bridge level cut as it is into the hillside at the back of the station. Sheffield's light rail system is surely Britain's most useful at the moment. The spacious square fronted trams go to the City, 2 universities, Hillsborough and the Don Valley Stadiums and Meadowhall shopping centre: important places for local people as well as many one-off vistors. Fares start at 80p; the system is easy to understand and, if it's true that first impressions count, it's a good way of selling the city.
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